It might of course have to do with the fact that my sleep pattern is heavily disturbed lately (so I pulled 2 allnighters in a row. what? there’s so much STUFF on this internet-thing), or the fact that I’m stressing out about my beloved PhD-work which has still not been published and because of which I may or may not be scooped by a Japanese group (don’t they have more urgent stuff on their mind? like a melting nuclear plant?)(and shouldn’t I have finished this ages ago instead of blaming the Japanese and trolling the internet?).

It may also have to do with the fact that my parents are coming to visit tomorrow. That’s good, right? I mean, I haven’t seen them since January. Damn, I have barely heard them. Literally. I called once to wish my dad a happy birthday. That was it.

I have called my parents once in over 3 months.

Now, I’m one of those forgetful people. Out of sight out of mind, you know. It’s not that I am so busy or I got a lot on my mind. I don’t (I should, though). It’s just… I get easily distracted. So yes, when you don’t contact me, chances are there’s not gonna be contact at all. Working quite unsuccessfully on that one, I promise.

So my parents call me. Biweekly, more or less, I’d say. Or well, they used to. The reason for that? Well…

I mean, of course, me and my mum… we’ve never been best friends. Something, somewhere went wrong, I don’t even know what, ’cause really, we’re both nice people. And we’re a lot alike, I hear. But I guess we’re just too different on those little things that really matter. And it doesn’t work. Her and me. Of course, the fact she didn’t talk to me for 3 months when I confessed my relationship with T didn’t help. We’re doing better now, but still… not BFFs. That and I’m not sure she knows how to work Skype yet.
My dad on the other hand… he is was my hero. He’s like… MY DAD. I know you’re not really supposed to have this admiration for your dad when you’re 29 years old, but I do did. As with my mum, I’m actually not really sure why this came to be, but I guess my dad’s just this cool guy, who’s a DIY-expert and helps me out and just generally supports me whatever I do.

So in short – my dad doesn’t call anymore. Because he is very well aware he’s lost his hero-status.

Last December, my dad was given a pacemaker because he has been… fainting, I guess. It appears his heart just… stops… once in a while, causing him to faint. It only happened 3 or 4 times, but when you know one of those times he was driving, you know something needed to be done. Hence, after many tests and checks: pacemaker.
And then, in January, he had another car accident. Let me align some facts on this particular incident.

it was a total loss

I was e-mailed (!) about this almost a week after it happened

although my dad admitted to having drunk ‘some’, he made it appear as if the main suspected cause was his heart

This already pissed me of, but only now we’re coming to the fun part

he had almost 4 times the allowed amount of alcohol in his blood

Now, I’m not sure I have mentioned this before, but I have a BIG problem with alcohol abuse. I cannot deal with drunk people. I simply cannot. I see no reason to spend a lot of money on an excuse to act irresponsibly and not remember any of it. And be proud of it, at that. I don’t even know why I feel so strongly about this topic, and I don’t really want to go into this here either, so let’s just keep it at that: I am strongly opposed to alcohol abuse.

(Between you and me, I’ve long maintained I feel my dad has an alcohol problem. He drinks on a daily basis, several glasses, and he gets cranky if for some reason he cannot have his drink at night. It’s the one flaw (that, and the fact he smokes. secretly.) I have had trouble with, but nobody shared my opinion – my dad was just a social drinker (really? while watching tv on his own?) and had it under control.)

And then my dad goes and crashes his car in the middle of the night having close to 2 promilles of alcohol in his blood. That should NOT happen. It míght happen to an 18-year old going out for the first time and (terribly) misjudging his/her alcohol intake, but that is about as far as I’m willing to take it. No excuse. At. All.

Especially not if you try to cover it up as if it had a different cause.
And you don’t mention it for a week.

I’m overreacting. I know I am. But I just cannot read an e-mail from my dad anymore without thinking “you ass”. I cannot think of him without my blood starting to boil. I can’t look forward to their visit, to show them around in my life here and have dinner together because I don’t know what I’m gonna do if he orders a beer to go with the meal. As if the whole picture of my dad has crumbled and fallen apart and there’s nothing left.

“Who’s this guy and what has he done to my dad?”

I don’t know how to deal with this. I don’t want to mess up my parents’ visit by being a moaning jerk. But I don’t want to let it slip and pretend nothing’s wrong either.

I’m picking them up at the airport tomorrow morning at 8h30. Between that and passing by the lab before, I have some 3 hours of sleep left. I better get to it, or I will be too tired to be able to play pretend even if I wanted to ;).

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Lies. That's my name. It may help to clarify that it should be pronounced /li:s/ and has little or nothing to do with any type of untruthful statements or deception. I have a cat, a house, a girlfriend and a post-doc position abroad. This is my world, or at least how I see it, however for anybody else it may very well be a world of lies.

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